Hotel Via a modest winner near ballpark
Newest King Street structure has details that shine
For all the attention focused on flashy towers and big-name museums, it’s the cumulative success or failure of more modest buildings that matter most to our cities in terms of design.
The misfits are formulaic, if not inept or downright rude. The good ones bring small but lasting pleasures.
Which brings us to San Francisco’s Hotel Via, a 12story structure that opened last week on King Street across from AT&T Park. The architecture is straightforward but satisfying, with details that shine and nothing that makes you wince when you take a closer look. And if that sounds like faint praise, then you don’t know how tough it can be to build some types of buildings in some parts of San Francisco.
The newcomer sits on the
edge of the South End Historic District, an area defined by workhorse industrial buildings from the early 1900s. To its east is the Garcia and Maggini Warehouse, built in 1913 and a city landmark. To the west, across a snug alley, three stocky 21st century buildings ape the red-brick tone of the district and the Giants’ ballpark, with varying degrees of success.
The architectural setting brings one set of constraints. The hotel function brings another: Operators want packedin efficiency from floor to floor, maximizing the number of rooms and minimizing any quirks that might trim the profit margins.
Despite all this, Hotel Via manages to enrich its surroundings while adding fresh twists.
The 159-room hotel is clad mainly in tiles of earthy terra-cotta and topped by a narrow crown above the corner where King meets the private alley. The entrance is on the alleyway. Along King Street, strollers pass a hotel bar with 19-foot glass walls.
Those last two touches enliven the pedestrian scene, even if you aren’t paying $15 for a “signature cocktail” or ducking down the alley to check in at the “beyond boutique” hotel, where room rates start at $199. Commotion on game days aside, the long block of King between Second and Third streets can be a plod. This brings a shot of syncopation to the slow rhythm.
There’s also more to the facade than thinskinned terra-cotta. Metal sunscreens above each window send angular shadows slicing across the facades on clear days. On the alley, the thick bay that holds the elevators is clad in white metal and punctuated by deep windows, a visual anchor that adds heft to the smooth tiles on either side.
The design is by Stanton Architecture, which makes a specialty of urban hotels. Its most recent was the underwhelming disheartening Hampton Inn on Mission Street, a 15-story midblock tower that looks like a zoning envelope brought to life.
But at Hotel Via, Stanton worked with a veteran local developer and builder, David O’Keefe, who emigrated here with his brother from Ireland several decades ago and purchased the King Street site in 2006. His firm plans to hold onto the property. The O’Keefes also went the independent hotel route rather than hand off control to the big boys.
Pride of ownership is involved.
That pride translates into such functional flourishes as how the hotel handles its ventilation screens and gas meter.
In the former, the air circulation systems that often are announced by large metal grills here are tucked behind custom terra-cotta tiles that are the same size as the regular tiles but punctured by 25 small slits. As for the gas meter, which is required to be accessible from King Street, Stanton and O’Keefe concealed it behind a suave roll-up door that wears a coat of weathered green to match the window frames of the rooms above.
These aren’t details that turn heads. But they tie up loose ends, polish things off. The architecture is integral to the structure, not simply wrapping applied to the buildable space that’s allowed. Even the most awkward design feature, that angled crown marking the corner of the hotel, doubles as a windbreak for the guests-only rooftop lounge (yes, the views are killer).
Inside, predictably, things liven up.
The lobby design by Craige Walters includes a check-in counter with atmospherically lit onyx panels. The wall between the lobby and the public bar is molded glass that looks like a slab of melting ice. The corridors’ walls are skinned in what feels almost like a tight metal mesh, and there are fire pits and draped cabanas on the roof.
It’d be great if there were hints of such freedom outside. That’s rare in highly visible and tightly planned neighborhoods like this.
But well-crafted buildings these days are also too rare. Newcomers like Hotel Via deserve attention — if only to nudge other developers and architects to step up their game. Place is a weekly column by John King, The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron